


To Feast Past the Ribs

by orphan_account



Series: The Life I Made For You/ Semi-Connected Introspections [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Civil War Team Iron Man, Gen, Not A Fix-It, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), not team Cap friendly, welcome to: dinner theatre introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 13:33:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12582996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Paint ghosts over everything, the sadness of everything. We made ourselves cold. We made ourselves snow. We smuggled ourselves into ourselves. Haunted by each other’s knowledge. To hide somewhere is not surrender, it is trickery. All day the snow falls down, all night the snow. I try to guess your trajectory and end up telling my own story. We left footprints in the slush of ourselves, getting out of there.”-Richard Siken(Or, Wakanda is a warmth that they don't deserve, but it's all coming up roses anyways.)





	To Feast Past the Ribs

Dinner is served at precisely 19:00 every night. The Wakandans are both rigid and efficient in their ideals.

Here, everything is made of glass and metal, but feels ancient still. It lacks the sleek modernism that Steve had grown used to, despite the quality of the tech.

The sit at a round table, and the chairs run directly out of the ground. The round table, T’challa had said, was a tradition in the royal family. The Arthurian legends are a rip off of the Wakandan history that the secluded country had not felt the need to correct over the centuries- that is, according to the king. Meals in Wakanda are not allowed to be battlegrounds. When they sit across from each other they are equals.

Tonight, the dishes are American. They’ve all said before that they don’t need to be catered too, but the Wakandans insisted- as they are guests of the king. At any rate their American cuisine is better than Steve has ever had _in_ America. The food passes freely around the table.

Sam and Clint sit on either side of him. Neither of them are super-soldiers but they both eat like they are. Between the two of them and Steve himself, they could eat the entire world dry and still have room to fill. With the absence of Bucky gnawing at him, Steve eats even more than usual.

It’s not the food that comforts him, just the action. It gives him something to focus on, even if it’s something small. This way, he doesn't have to look to the left and see Clint where Bucky should be.

Bucky’s decision to go back into cryostasis was his, and his alone, to make, but that doesn’t mean that Steve has to enjoy it. He understand well enough. Bucky was a prisoner for seventy years, and while the physical chains are gone, the mental ones never fully will be. Him going under was the best decision for everybody. The Winter Soldier can’t hurt anybody, and when Bucky wakes up he’ll have the peace of mind that he needs. Steve just feels powerless in the interim.

He’d made it clear, just before taking the leap, that the chance for a cure was the only thing worth waking up for. Everyday Steve sees that chance slipping further and further away. There is no one stop-shop for brainwashing. Even here in Wakanda, what appears to be a technological marvel, they are eons away from anything that could help. The scientists who put Bucky back under had said as much, and then promptly offered their sympathies. Steve kept himself in line, but often wondered if they just weren’t willing to try hard enough. It’s a nasty thought, but it bubbles to the surface every time.

The Wakandan’s value knowledge. That’s undeniable. The entire country is a testament to it. To value something isn’t to love it, though. There’s something sterile about how they learn. From what he’s seen, their schooling is clinical and rigorous, and they approach every subject the same way. It’s similar to how Howard used to operate.

It’s hard not to notice, being here for so long that Wakanda is advanced- but Steve has seen what they do and _more_ before. Something nags at the back of his head that they are only advanced because they have been progressing longer, and not faster. They are almost too careful, too scared of what they could offer the world if only they wanted to. Try as he might, Steve can’t shake his feeling of disappointment in them. When he knows what the future _can_ be, when he has met Tony Stark, the glory of Wakanda pales in comparison.

He knows without a shadow of a doubt that if anybody could cure Bucky, it’s Tony. Give the man a wrench and he can stop the world. Hell, with Ultron he almost had. And Steve’s more caught up on the times then people give him credit for. He’s seen the presentation on B.A.R.F.. Watched it a thousand times, even, since coming here.

Tony’s so driven, so passionate about what he does. The things he can accomplish in seemingly only the space it takes somebody else to breath in are nothing short of amazing. It occurred to him, while watching the video over again late one night- that he had never told Tony this. For the longest time, he thought that the man didn’t need to hear it. In the glow of the complement, Tony’s ego would only grow ten times it’s already inflated size. What a misconception that was.

Tony is all bravado. The narcissist is just a facade to hide behind, and to anybody who bothers to look enough, a poor one. Besides, finding Wakanda lacking is proof enough that any ego Tony has is well earned.

In their early days, Tony had been a frustration. He stood as a glowing beacon reminding Steve of all he had lost going into the ice. He was an uncontrolled variable, too. Steve couldn’t understand him. They fought constantly. But over time, they grew on each other. Their bickering became an old glove, with an underlying fondness. They never really agreed with each other, but before, at least, there was trust. What is there now?

Steve likes to think that it had started with Ultron, but that’s just an excuse. Tony had built Ultron, but long after the bots demise the rest of them had weaponized Ultron and used him as leverage against Tony. Some of them still do.

“Can you pass the bread?,” Wanda asks across the table and it’s evident that Steve’s the only one who hears it. She speaks like a mouse these days, so meek in herself without the comforts of home.Her and Vision had been making so much headway and now she is once again regressing. Without a comment, he life the bread basket and reaches across the table where her hand is waiting to grab it from him. With Wanda, he cannot tell if she is quiet because she is sad, or quiet because she is stewing in anger. They’d always been the same, in that way.

Steve had used Ultron as an excuse to feed into his own anger. He’d been a spiteful child, using Ultron as a scapegoat to validate his own emotions. He had reason to be angry, sure, but he drew it out again and again, his ultimate fallback when faced with Tony. The others fell in line for their own reasons, but the angrier Steve was at Tony, the more he could justify not telling him about his search for Bucky, and the Winter Soldier’s involvement in his parents death. It was cowardice that allowed him to twist every action of Tony’s into that of an adversary, and cowardice still in Siberia.

It’s easy to admit now, with his winnings before him, that they never would’ve come to blows if Bucky hadn’t been at stake. They could’ve argued about the Accords until they were blue in the face but they never would’ve touched each other. Steve still thinks that the Accords are wrong. That document is the first stepping stone to taking away all of their rights; that’s how it always starts. They would’ve gotten it thrown out, or reworked eventually though. They could all still be in the compound right now, with Tony in the tower- but Steve couldn’t leave Bucky behind again.

He spent a long time convincing himself that he was saving Bucky because it was the right thing to do, but Zemo had upended him. He slammed his shield into Tony’s arc reactor until it stopped because he was selfish. The actualization of Tony’s grief was a threat to his own happiness, and hiding behind moral ambiguity won’t help him anymore. Sam told him in the aftermath, that it’s okay to be human, and to act out- but this wasn’t some tantrum to be easily smoothed over. He’d left Siberia a victor. Even the howling wind was singing them praises as they left. It wasn’t until he was stripped to his thinnest clothes, basking in the warm light of Wakanda without a shield to reach for that he remembered that there are no winners at war. Bucky sleeps in a tube down the hall, and the only man who could save him hates him.

Natasha sits across from him now with a raised eyebrow. She was stuck in a meeting with T’challa, and arrived late for dinner,taking her seat between Scott and Wanda. Steve doesn’t know what they talk about, just like he doesn’t know what T’challa and Ross talk about, or Ross and Tony for that matter. T’challa is a busy man, and he is hospitable, but he rarely joins them. Natasha doesn’t owe him any explanations either. He trusts her to tell him if something is going on.

“You’re being awfully quiet over there, Cap,” She says and Steve balls the tablecloth up under his hands.

“Do you think he’ll forgive me?”

She doesn’t miss a beat, but she doesn’t meet his eyes either.

“I think he’ll help us.”

It doesn’t skip his notice how she evades the answer, but Clint jumps in with a , “Well he fucking should,” and the night continues. At the end of the night, he knows the answer to be _no,_ but he knows the safety of not saying it out loud just as well.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a bit mean to Wakanda here, but in all fairness it's an unrealistic nation.


End file.
